Feb 27, 2026 By Mike Jones 4 min read

The Peters Township High School senior class president accused of “catfishing” and extorting nearly two dozen teenagers by convincing them to send him explicit photos agreed to waive his case to trial as prosecutors dropped hundreds of charges in order to consolidate them.

Shackled and wearing an orange jumpsuit, 18-year-old Zachariah Abraham Meyers appeared Friday morning at the Washington County Courthouse before District Judge Phillippe Melograne and agreed to allow his case to proceed without contesting the charges during his scheduled preliminary hearing.

“Is that your understanding, young man?” Melograne asked Meyers about his decision to forgo a preliminary hearing.

“Yes,” Meyers said while seated at the defense table flanked by his two attorneys.

As part of waiver, Assistant District Attorney Frank Kocevar announced the prosecution had agreed to amend the criminal complaint to reduce the number of felony charges Meyers was originally facing from more than 300 down to 67 counts. They include unlawful contact with a minor, trafficking minors, corruption of minors and multiple counts of images depicting child sex acts, child sex abuse material, sexual exploitation of minors, sexual communication with a minor, sexual extortion, disseminating photos of children, criminal use of a communications facility and intercepting communications.

The case has attracted national attention, and there was heightened security with at least 10 sheriff’s deputies stationed in and around Courtroom 1 where the brief hearing took place. Meyers’ parents sat in the first row in the gallery behind him, while attorneys for some of the accusers sat sprinkled around the courtroom monitoring the hearing.

Meyers is accused of creating false profiles on social media platforms TikTok and Snapchat to “catfish” many of the alleged victims as he pretended to be someone else, according to court documents. The correspondence happened between the summer of 2024 and last summer as he communicated with at least 21 alleged victims ranging in age from 14 to 17 during that time, said Peters Township police, who began investigating in early December.

Police said Meyers convinced the victims to send sexually explicit images and videos to him by pretending to be an attractive young female, and he pressured one of them to send more materials by threatening to expose the victim. He also allegedly pressured the teen to send videos while involved in sexual encounters with two different adult men, who were not identified in court records.

Police said one victim also used a cellphone to secretly record the Peters Township High School wrestling locker room, doing so at Meyers’ direction. Other victims claimed that Meyers threatened to send pictures and videos to family and friends if they did not continue to send more, police said, while he also allegedly demanded $500 in exchange for keeping the material private.

A search was performed at his Peters Township home in the 200 block of Windermere Court on Feb. 20, and he was arrested later that day and arraigned by Melograne, who denied him bond.

After waiving the charges to court, his defense attorney, Lisle Weaver, asked Melograne to reconsider his decision not to offer bond. Weaver said Meyers is not a physical threat to the community and that his computers and cellphones have been confiscated by police, while he would also be restricted from using social media and the internet.

“Everybody he knows lives here. He’s 18 years old. He can’t even rent a car,” Weaver said. “His family is extensively supportive. To say they’re taking it seriously is an understatement.”

But Kocevar countered that the prosecution did not support any bail due to the serious nature of the charges, the number of devices Meyers had at his home, the easy access to get on the internet, the large number of accusers and the previous threats he made to the alleged victims.

Melograne agreed and again denied Meyers bond, although his attorneys could ask for a bond hearing soon before a Washington County Court of Common Pleas judge.

“I realize these are allegations,” Melograne said. “There might not be physical contact (with the accusers) but there was an effort to solicit physical contact from a third party for salacious purposes. I’m still not willing to take that risk for the safety of the community.”

Following the hearing, sheriff’s deputies escorted Meyers out of the courtroom in shackles and returned him to the Washington County jail. His formal arraignment is scheduled for 3 p.m. March 30 before Judge Traci McDonald.